October 30
Not that the indictment of Scooter (what's the point of his nickname, to make him sound like a mischievous kid) isn't huge and deserving of the attention it's getting: after all, this scandal was one the first things I wrote about when I started this blog and I've thought all along if anything would bring down Bush this would be it. Still I'd like to mention some things that deserve a bit more attention and/or perspective.
To start with, can we finally stop this fawning over the supposedly honorable Colin Powell? It's been rumored for years he wasn't as venal as his colleagues in the administration and that he was more realistic about Iraq. My anger at him comes oddly enough from the revelation of his former chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, that those rumors and assumptions were true. Powell did indeed see through the lies and figured out that the crap he spoke at the UN in the last attempt to sell the war was indeed crap. So why do I not fawn over Powell too? Because he stayed in the government and went along with the fraud, and defended it afterwards, even if only weakly. Had he spoken out before war, he probably would have stopped it and 100,000 need not have been killed. Instead of praising him for his loyalty to his president, I ask why he didn't do what other secretaries of state have done, and resigned over a matter of principle. He then would have been free to speak the truth. If he doesn't really share the opinions of Wilkerson, if he still defends the war, then I suggest being better than Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rove, Libby, and of course Bush himself, isn't much of a standard.
Harriet Miers is likely to be forgotten now that her candidacy as been withdrawn, but she is remaining White House Counsel, which is still a pretty high job, and it would be nice to have someone ethical in that position. Unfortunately that may not be the case if a couple possible instances of wrongdoing discovered by the press are true:
- The state of Texas bought land from her for ten times market value. The commission that made the decision included a crony of hers who was appointed by a judge who received lots of campaign cash from Miers. When she later agreed to refund part of the purchase price, she managed to forget to make the payment.
- When she was chairwoman of the Texas lottery commission, she fired a director, Lawrence Littwin, allegedly at the instigation of GTECH. GTECH was the main lottery contractor and Littwin was investigating it. The allegation is a lobbyist for GTECH asked Miers to fire Littwin to stop the investigation. The lobbyist was Ben Barnes, former Lt. Governor, who during the Vietnam War helped rich kids get into champaign units of the National Guard, including Bush Jr. This was in 1997, when Bush was still hoping to hide this in fear it could damage his political prospects. Nobody knew then he could survive the revelation by smearing combat veterans.
In another state with an all-Republican government, Ohio, a prominent fundraiser has been indictment for violating campaign finance laws on behalf of the Bush campaign. This hopefully won't be the last indicted for Tom Noe, who is also having trouble explaining the money that disappeared in "coingate", where the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation handed this Republican crony $50 million to invest in coins. This is the same Republican government that managed to hand Ohio to Bush last year. But remember, despite these crooks being in charge, we should just accept the result and get over it. Ignore that man behind the curtain. Maybe he's just trying to vote on a funky machine. So no, I'm not "over it", but I think refusing to get over the subversion of democracy is actually a good thing.
October 24
Before getting into the more vital stuff, I did promise a Take the Red Pill Award a few days ago. This award goes Rapture Ready. They have the Rapture Index, which is a statistical analysis indicating how close the rapture appears to be. Oddly enough, the number indicating the rapture's proximity fluctuates, though presumably it could only go up as the rapture gets closer. So what are they saying? "Hey look, it's closer. Oops we were wrong, but only a bit so the number goes down...". I seem to recall Jesus saying something about the end coming like a thief in the night, but I guess Rapture Ready would rather rely on someone coming up with new prophecies. Lest you think this site is just the index, they have a list of experts on prophesy longer than the list of prophets in the Old Testament. Hey, why keep it simple when you can make oodles of money selling interpretations?
There is a collection of timelines they consider important for the end to come, like the history of Islam and the European Union, whose formation is the prophesied revival of the Roman Empire. This assumes of course the Roman Empire now includes a bunch of Europe that was not part of the ancient empire, while the eastern Mediterranean, the core of the empire, is mysteriously absent.
On the FAQ, the answer to the question of whether there are errors in the bible includes this:
Second, we need to keep in mind the changing face of history and the "errors" it may indicate. For example, for many years Bible critics emphatically stated that no archeological evidence existed to support the contention that criminals were crucified during Jesus' time. However, a pair of heel bones were recently found. These bones had been nailed together and were dated to be contemporary to Jesus' Jerusalem. With that discovery, the Bible was suddenly vindicated, the "error" vanished, and critics moved on to their next "air-tight" case.That's a classic case of discrediting your critics by attacking them for things they didn't say. I suspect the claim there were no crucifictions would come as a shock to actual archaeologists. I'd follow the link to the source for that assertion except, oh look, there isn't one. I'll tell you what there is though: a Take the Red Pill Award which Rapture Ready is welcome to take with them should the day come.
As the Plame leak investigation reaches back into the original cause (maybe we'll finally find out where the forged documents came from in he first place), the deception about the evidence against Iraq, the acting president's defenders still cling to the defense that other countries believed Saddam was up to something, thus bolstering the claim that no matter how wrong the justifications for war, they were made in good faith. Two points that shows what nonsense that is:
One, no other country has the intelligence apparatus we do. Only a few really had the means to investigate Iraq themselves, probably including Britain, Russia, France, but I would doubt any others. So to a large degree, other countries' belief that Saddam was seeking WMD and ties to Al Qaida was based on what the US was telling them. It's as if I tell a convincing lie to someone who trusts me, and when I get caught, I defend myself by saying "so-and-so believed it too".
Two, note that of those countries that might have come to an independent conclusion, only Britain joined in the invasion, and the British government has been charged with deceit too. Anyone else who came to the same conclusion as Bush opted not to invade, which is after all the key action here, much like the "Clinton believed it too" argument.
This leads me to attempt to coin a new word: "metacoverup", which I define as an attempt to cover up a coverup. By that I mean it looks like the Fitzgerald investigation has ranged into a coverup of the Plame leak in addition to the leak itself. The leak was political retribution against a critic, Joseph Wilson, revealing what he knew about the falsification of the reasons for war, and more than that, no one else with knowledge of Bush's deception could fail to notice that retribution was taken against Wilson's wife, possibly putting her life in danger, certainly blowing her operations and damaging her career. In other words, the White House would have no qualms about endangering the family of anyone who talked. This was the coverup of the deceptive sales campaign for war. The coverup of the leak is therefore a coverup of a coverup, thus "metacoverup". You might also note I don't buy that the leak was just an attempt to discredit Wilson by implying his wife sent him on his mission in an instance of CIA cronyism, though if that is what Rove, Libby et al were thinking, how ironic that the movers of the Bush administration thought just exposing a bit of cronyism would damage a critic's credibility.
I was thinking too about Bill Frist's claims a couple years ago that he couldn't know what was in his blind trust because it would be illegal for him to know in light of today's news that he was told 15 times about the status of the HCA stock in his "blind" trust. I had tried to be charitable at first, thinking he was honestly mistaken about it being illegal for him to know what was in the trust. Now that we know for sure he was being kept updated, there are only two possibilities. Either he knew it was legal for him to know, in which case he blatantly lied saying it was illegal, or he really thought it was illegal, meaning he was willing to repeatedly break the law when there was profit in it. Either way, he has disgraced himself and the Senate and he ought to resign. Take note that this is said without even mentioning the insider trading allegations that brought all this to light.
October 20
I think the plethora of leaks and speculations about the Plame investigation feels like Watergate. I say "think" because I was rather young back then. The clearest memory I have is from my 5th grade class in Valley Stream, NY (a name that screams "suburbia!"). I'm pretty sure it was Winter of 1974 since we moved to Minnesota in March of that year. Mr. Ingulli (forgive the spelling Mr. Ingulli if you're reading this, but it's been 31 years, though you are one of my favorite elementary school teachers) was leading us through a unit on American presidents, with those portraits of each one that gave the years they entered and left office. Richard Nixon of course had a blank for the year he left office. Mr. Ingulli admitted it was somewhat speculative, but filled in the current year for Nixon's last, and of course in August it turned out he was right, just as I think I've been right when I've called for Bush to resign too, except I'm not confident enough to make that a prediction, just a statement of what ought to happen. Still, speculation can be fun and while I've avoided it in this blog so far, there's just too much going on to resist writing about it.
Take for example just what Rove said about Libby. It is in some places being interpreted like Rove is fingering Libby as the leaker. I can buy that and I doubt it. I can buy it because Rove is someone with no sense of ethics whatsoever, and given his legal troubles it would be expected he would blame anyone he plausibly could. In fact, it would be expected that members of the acting president's administration would, like in any organization routinely engaged in illegal activities, turn on each other when the law starts catching up. On the other hand, Rove would have to know that turning in his source does only so much good if he still ran and told the press. Still, there's a sense of comeuppance if Rove does turn on his fellows. They were happy to have his ethics-free work habits when he was winning campaigns for them. If he starts handing them to a prosecutor to save his own skin, they have no right to say they didn't know what sort of man he was.
Here's a question: who in the know about the investigation keeps leaking to the press? I'm glad someone in the White House is cooperating, whether out of conscience (hard to believe in the Bush White House, but let's admit the possibility) or to save themselves (that sounds more like it), but the leaker in the investigation shouldn't have let us know about the cooperative witness. The bad guys must have guessed someone would talk, but now they know, and they must be bending their efforts towards ferreting out this person. The leaker must be missing the irony that the whole origin of the investigation was the leaking of information to the press that would be dangerous for the person being leaked about.
It's neat to hear the rumor Cheney will resign if he's named as one of the culpable parties, and indeed in that top-down administration it's hard to believe Cheney's chief of staff could be the main man behind the leak and Cheney not know. However, the rumor is that Condoleezza Rice would be the next vice-president. This would be an example of unintended consequences. Cheney deserves to be forced from office for several reasons, but he has the virtue of not planning to run for president himself. Rice probably would, and being veep is an advantage in winning nomination. So it might not be an improvement to go from a dishonest VP content to get filthy rich on his Halliburton stock options to a dishonest VP with ambitions. Cheney has the difference of being one of the brains while Rice appears to be just another yes man. The real interesting bit is whether the other brains will decide forcing Cheney out offers an irresistible opportunity to run a black woman for president and throw quite the dilemma to the Democrats. It would undeniably be a problem to explain why the party of civil rights and women's rights opposes a black woman. We would have to explain that we think a black woman should get a chance at the presidency, just not that particular black woman. So here's almost a prediction: if Cheney is in serious legal trouble, that is exactly the scenario the Republicans will seek to bring about. My boldness to make a certain prediction wanes when I think that a bunch of Republicans have their own presidential ambitions and will hardly think the strategic value of a black female on their ticket is worth forgoing their own chance.
Could this be another misstep? The story has been put out that Bush chewed out Rove over the Plame leak a couple years ago, and if the Republicans put out the story, it's was probably to protect Bush by making him look innocent of foreknowledge and properly dismayed. What they missed, if they did that, is Bush has since then denied knowing anything, which means the story he scolded Rove is a lie, or Bush lied every time he indicated he didn't know the facts himself. The reason for thinking this was deliberately put out by the White House is the New York Daily News story says this was all coming from a "presidential counselor" and "other sources" in the White House. They don't freelance this stuff in the Bush administration, or see a need for openness with the press. They meant to put this out, and the obvious contradiction of earlier Bush stories would explain why they quickly stopped. At least the one thing these guys were competent at was lying. Now they don't even have that.
October 18
Though it's late and I'm tired, it's worth writing this if I can get just one person to see The Torture Question, especially if that person is uninformed or one of that benighted 40% that still supports Bush. If you can watch it and still excuse the people who run our wars, get help. This is a Frontline documentary on the use of torture by Americans in Iraq and Guantanamo. It's not new material. One of my goals with this blog has been to try to bring attention to the use torture by our government in our name, and the information in the documentary is in sources I've linked to. However, Frontline collected it in one spot and brought the power of TV to it. It was on Twin Cities Public Television tonight and I expect it will be repeated. Check you local station, and tomorrow you'll be able to stream it on the PBS site.
It was a good evening on public TV, because right before The Torture Question was Nova Science Now, with a segment which was a follow-up on a story last January about the threat of a hurricane hitting New Orleans. It had two main points, one being a deserved we-told-you-so, and the other being more serious, that scientists who gave warning of the disaster were not only spot-on, but ignored. The relevance isn't only to recent history or future hurricanes, but to bigger questions, and specifically I'm getting back on the subject of global warming. Scientists are as certain the Earth is warming and from human causes as they were about the inevitable hurricane flooding New Orleans, and the same fools are refusing to listen.
And just to show how pervasive this anti-science culture of political corruption has become, namely that it is in no way confined to the federal government, the Minnesota state government has been requiring the Department of Natural Resources to forsake scientific determinations in favor of political decisions --- at the behest of special interests of course.
Now it's really late and I have my real job tomorrow, but in the next few days I plan to award another Take the Red Pill Award.
